The present invention relates to multi hulled water borne craft and more particularly concerns a catamaran vessel having articulated or bendable hulls for improved steering.
Multi hulled vessels, such as sailing catamarans, have significant advantages over mono hulled sailing vessels in affording greater speed, greater lateral stability, shallow draft and ability to carry larger amounts of sail. However, a major disadvantage of the multi hulled vessel is its lack of maneuverability. When a mono hull vessel is turned, the vessel may be considered to effectively pivot about a substantially vertical axis extending through and near a midpoint of the hull. When a multi hull vessel is turned, however, one may consider that one of the hulls can effectively pivot about a vertical axis, but the other must be laterally dragged through the water to effect the turning maneuver, and thus provides very large resistance to the turn. Whereas a mono hull sailing vessel may be able to tack at relatively low forward speed, the catamaran is notorious for requiring significantly higher forward speed to enable the vessel to come about. It is not infrequent, in attempting to tack at insufficient forward speeds, that the catamaran will lose its way and become dead in the water because of this poor maneuvering ability.
Another serious disadvantage of dual hull vessels derives in part from attempts to improve maneuverability. Such attempts include use of a somewhat "banana" shaped longitudinal hull bottom, wherein both forward and aft ends of both hull bottoms are curved upwardly to a significant extent, thereby to provide less lateral resistance during turning maneuvers. This improvement in maneuverability is attained only at the expense of significantly decreased resistance to lateral drift.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a multi hulled water draft that avoids or minimizes above mentioned problems.